Osama’s Undying Reach

When President Obama announced that U.S. special forces had helicoptered into Pakistan, broken into a secret compound an hour from the capital and killed Osama bin Laden, celebrations broke out all across America.

The man who plotted the mass murder of 3,000 of us had at last received his just reward. College students ran to the White House to chant “USA! USA!”

Even if one believes that rejoicing at executions of murderers is unseemly for a Christian people, the demands of justice had been met. The world is a better place without bin Laden, who was developing plans to blow up U.S passenger trains on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

Yet in Pakistan and across the Middle East, even in London, some came out to praise the “martyr” and threaten revenge.

In a way, this is the more interesting phenomenon. Why would people, who must believe themselves righteous and moral, keen and wail at the death of a monster who did what bin Laden had done?

Though Osama’s time was past — only 18 percent of the Arab world held a favorable view of him at his death — he was once among the most admired figures in the Islamic world.

In 2003, in Jordan, 56 percent of the pubic voiced confidence in Osama. In 2005, in Pakistan, 52 percent agreed. In July 2009, after Obama’s Cairo speech to the Muslim world, 22 percent of Palestinians said the U.S. president inspired confidence; 52 percent said Osama bin Laden did.

How to explain this? Do Arabs and Muslims approve of mass murder of innocent civilians? Why did so many find so much to admire in a man who planned the atrocities of 9/11?

In one man’s judgment, Osama was admired because he alone in the Arab world had the astonishing audacity to stand up and smash a fist into the face of the world’s last superpower, which had become one of the most resented powers in the Middle East. He was applauded because he had struck the most savage blow dealt America since British troops burned the Capitol and White House in 1814.

In short, the awe and admiration accorded bin Laden in the first half of the last decade were directly proportional to the depth of Arab and Muslim resentment and rage at the United States.

He was admired — for the enemy he hated and had attacked.

Nor is this unusual.

Why does Mao Zedong, who murdered 10 times as many Chinese as Japan in World War II, lie in honor in a crystal sarcophagus in Tiananmen Square? Because Mao is still seen to have ‘liberated” China from a century of rule by hated Japanese and Western imperial powers and their lackeys.

Why was Saigon renamed for Ho Chi Minh? Why do his remains rest in honor in Hanoi? Because “Uncle Ho” is seen by his people as having driven out the Japanese, French and Americans, and united all Vietnamese in a national home.

Even Fidel Castro, who brought the most successful country in Latin America down close to the level of Haiti, still has admirers inside and outside Cuba. Why? Because he defied the “Yanquis” and threw them out, along with their quisling Fulgencio Batista.

Like Mao, Ho and Castro, Osama tapped into the most powerful current of the age: ethnic nationalism, the desire of peoples to be rid of foreign rule and any oppressive foreign presence, and to put up against a wall all indigenous traitors who do the foreigners’ will.

Lest we forget, Osama was once an ally of Ronald Reagan’s America. We provided the Stingers, and he provided the money for the Afghan mujahedeen to administer the deathblow to the Soviet Empire.

Some yet argue that Osama and al-Qaida attacked us because they hate our freedoms. Why, then, did they fight the Russians? Did they hate the freedoms enjoyed by Soviet citizens in Leonid Brezhnev’s time?

In his 1998 declaration of war, Osama gave three reasons. Americans, he said, had deployed their infidel troops on sacred Saudi soil. Americans were strangling a crushed Iraqi people with murderous sanctions. Americans were enabling Zionists to oppress and rob Palestinian Arabs of their lands.

Osama plugged his personal war into the anti-American currents running in the region. It was whom he was fighting against, us, not the new caliphate he claimed to be fighting for, a utopian absurdity, that caused scores of millions to admire him, even if many were horrified by his methods.

It was when al-Qaida took to killing Arabs and Muslims that Osama lost the prestige he once had.

Osama is dead and gone. But the ideas he tapped into — the desire of Arab peoples to break free, to reclaim their sovereignty, to restore their past greatness, to be rid of the foreigner and his lackeys — are also the motivating ideas of the Arab Spring.

And as Victor Hugo reminded us, “Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.”

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21 Responses to Osama’s Undying Reach

I don’t know, Pat. Were the bombings of the World Trade Center and Pentagon really less justified than any of the following actions by Americans or their allies:

1. The three grievances you note (military occupation of Saudi Arabia, murderous sanctions on Iraq; ethnic cleansing of Gentile Palestinians by Zionists);

2. The 300,000 civilians killed by Americans with atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasak;

3. The 1 million Japanese killed by the American firebombing of Tokyo;

3. The 2 million Vietnamese killed by our invasion of the Indo-China Peninsula;

4. The 100,000s of Iraqis killed as a result of the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003;

5. The tens of thousands of Afghanis killed by Americans in Afghanistan;

6. The thousands of Pakistanis killed by American drone strikes in Pakistan;

7. The firebombing of Dresden.

Etc.

What exactly leads you to say we are fighting on the side of justice when Bin Laden (“Geronimo”) and his fellow men have been fighting out of what they believe is self-defense? Who is the actual aggressor in this conflict? Who really cast the first stone? Which of the two parties has had a standing offer of peace on the table for the last ten years, an offer that includes very specific and reasonable requests. Geronimo or the United States? Hint: It’s not the United States.

Are they over here? Or have we been over there, and for a very, very long time? You know something of the true history of the Middle East and America’s support for the Zionist conquest of Palestine. Try using some of that knowledge.

You might start with this message that Geronimo sent to the American people ahad of the 2004 presidential elections:

And, as PJB and others have pointed out before, bin Laden set out to defeat the US the same way the mujahideen had defeated the Russians — by bankrupting us. Measured by the success of that strategy, bin Laden won, though he might have lost his life in the cause. He’s laughing at us from beyond the grave.

Your comments as usual are lucid. But as V.S. Naipul commented in his book about the Muslim world, “Among the Believers”, why was Iran with its Shahira Law fighting Iraq with American F-4s. Could a society run by Shahira law produce a state of the art jet fighter? To me it reminds me of a discussion I had with a Lesbian who was damning the “Patriarchy.” She wanted the benefits but not the burdens of the culture that “Patriarchy” created. She denied owning a car, but rode a bicycle, so I asked who created the metallurgy necessary for her bicycle. If the Muslim world is “backward” it is because their religion prevents them from embracing the rationalism and “freedom” of the West which is, for better or worse, the foundation of the West’s quality of life and dominance.

If America’s incineration of 300,000 Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified, why aren’t the Sept. 11 raids on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon?

If America was justified in killing tens of thousands of Arabs in its illegal invasion of Iraq, why aren’t the Sept. 11 raids on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon justified?

If America was justified in causing the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children through its murderous sanctions against the Iraqi nation in the 1990s, why was it not justified for the Arab resistance to bomb the World Trade Center and the Pentagon?

If it wasn’t “evil” for Americans to kill 2 million Vietnamese in the War in Indochina, why was it “evil” to bomb the World Trade Center and the Pentagon?

@Ferdi: This essay is not merely “lucid.” It is BRILLIANT!!! “And as Victor Hugo reminded us, ‘Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.’” My friend, money can not buy prose like that! If you but open your ears you will hear the tectonic plates of geopolitics shifting with a great rumble at those words. Not ALL the gold in New York and London will ever achieve that.

Do not underestimate your enemy. The West’s “quality of life and dominance,” as you put it, depends on Christian liberty, both personal and legal, not on the thin abstractions of sickly French intellectuals, as you so unwisely suppose. Our vaunted liberty was won for us by Constantine, not by Robespierre & Co.

And in the relevant geopolitical terms, your Muslim enemy is anything but “backward.” In fact, the Islamic Establishment is, as you type, cutting through the bureaucracies of Washington, D.C., like a hot knife through warm butter. The Arab Spring is the 1789 or 1917 of this century and, when Mr. Buchanan puts the fact right in front of your nose, you can only respond with blind complacency. There are none so doomed as those who are about to be flattened by a bull-dozer and are too smug to notice.

At least the stunning prose of this extraordinary essay gave you fair warning. Bon voyage.

“But the ideas he tapped into — the desire of Arab peoples to break free, to reclaim their sovereignty, to restore their past greatness, to be rid of the foreigner and his lackeys — are also the motivating ideas of the Arab Spring.”

So why are we not seeing mass uprisings in Iraq and Aghanistan to throw American soldiers and civilians out of the countries? Don’t get me wrong, I would like to see MUCH less American involvment in the Middle East.

However, I think the Arabs may also realize that they are their own worst enemy. For instance, when America invaded Iraq, there was no overarching unity between Sunni and Shia. They fought and killed each other even more than they fought us.

As Ferdi mentioned above, the Islamic world is backwards. So, if the Arab Spring leads to more fundamentalist Islamic theocracies, the movement may instead morph into the Arab Winter.

The “war on terror” has been manipulated to the benefit of the Military-Industrial-Security Complex.

The Liberal meme: We deserved it! (see Hardwell’s comment)

Bunk (the American People are innocent).

To the extent there is Middle East blowback(most “terror” is actually manipulated by western imperialists to further their justifications of an internal police state and penetration into the Middle East), it is because of what one Patrick Buchanan and Ron Paul stated:

They (terrorists) are over HERE because we (U. S. military) are over THERE.

To say this doesn’t mean Americans “deserve” to be terrorized by Middle Easterners or anybody else (Globalists).

Did we get terrorism from the Middle East in the 1950′s and 60′s?

What is the difference between then and now?

American military involvement was quite limited (the CIA is another matter) in the Middle East during the 1950′s and 60′s.

Are Arabs yearning to be free and have decent economic opportunities?

Absolutely.

America doesn’t need to dominate the Middle East to have a secure economic future free from outside physical threats.

But also know the Globalists want to manipulate the Arab uprisings as much as they want to manipulate Americans.

Globalists want to manipulate everybody to the benefit of their self-centered schemes.

Globalists hate National Sovereignty whether in the Middle East or, here, in America.

The American People have a historic choice:

Back out of the Military Imperium the Military-Industrial-Security Complex has created or plunge in ever more deeply and see an internal police state created, here, in America to “protect” us from the outside physical threats intendant in building and maintaining an Empire.

Ultimately, the choice is for the American People:

But know the Globalists will do everything they can to divide Americans.

“Divide and Rule” is the Globalist motto, whether in the Middle East or, here, in America.

A united American populous can demand and vote for politicians who will withdraw from the Middle East quagmire.

You believe too much what you read in the newspapers. If we have not seen epic “mass uprisings in Iraq and Afghanistan to throw American soldiers and civilians out of the countries,” then what has the history of the last decade been about? You do not see the power of the Saudi Royal Family because you do not want to see it. In spite of you, this has no effect whatsoever on their horrendously vast power (which is growing by the day)! An “overarching unity between Sunni and Shia” is precisely what the current efforts of President Ahmadinejad are all about: His “Persian Islam” IS the unity of the Sunni and Shia and is mightily in the self-interest of the Saudi Royals & Company. With surreptitious help from the Sunnis, Ahmadinejad will prevail over the narrow-minded bigots of the Iranian clerical establishment. Disbelieve as much as you like, but mark my words: Admadinejad WILL prevail with backstage maneuvers by the Saudi Royals and other leading Sunnis. Persian nationalism should not be underestimated. At the heart of the Arab Spring is an inheritance from the late Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and his devout follower, the late Egyptian President Nasser, not any “fundamentalist theocracy.” The actual “fundamentalist theocrats” are the men who have already been ruling the world since 9/11. Again, you are blind to the SUCCESSES of the contemporary “Karl Marx,” that accursed Salafi abomination named Osama.

And there is “backwardness” and there is “backwardness.” Much of what you imagine to be “forwardness” is actually merely decadence. How else to explain the glaring FAILURE of the American military effort in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001? Again, willful blindness to the obvious can not change the facts of the ground. Chant “U.S.A., U.S.A.” till you drop, but that does not change the all-important reality that Prez Obamy is a boastful coward and a degenerate turd. Likewise his government.

The “medieval” forces now gaining ascendency in both Islam and Catholicism are not signs of backward weakness. Not at all. You are blinded by leftist propaganda about the Middle Ages and Ancient World. When the late unlamented Chairman Mao said “All power comes out of the barrel of a gun” he had a point. The fate of our planet is being determined by MILITARY power, not by popular agitprop. In terms of their ARMIES, do not underestimate the Muslims and Catholics.

It is those closely allied ARMIES who are about to decide our future. They will be moved by the whispers they hear from their “sacred dead.” Because: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” You do not approve of this in any way, but rest assured, no one is waiting for your approval. Not even you can stop the dawn… (And, oh yeah, by the way, THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN. Chew on that truth for a while.)

Boy, try making those points at the next Republican National Convention…or even the next DNC. It does have the advantage of being true, however.

To cite an ancient meme, we are there for two reasons, oil and Israel.

OPEC will sell us the oil, as sure as the Mexican drug lords get America it’s drugs. Spending a gazillion dollars on middle eastern hegemony doesn’t really add much to the supply. Hell, let’s declare OPEC oil contraband and watch the American market swell with cheap oil.

I don’t dislike Israel. They have their interests. We have ours. I wish them luck, but I’ll be damned if I’ll support sending American kids over there to support them bullying around a bunch of rock throwing Gazans. That’s their problem, not ours. In fact, our involvement might be delaying them cutting a deal with people who don’t like them very much and outnumber them 10:1 in the region. Right now, Israel feels like we’ll back them up no matter what they do.

Deal with those two issues and get the hell out of that region, and they will leave us alone.

There are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world. Indonesia has the most Muslims of any country and is 80% Muslim. Yet, the US is fighting “Islamofascism” in the Middle East. Why? The people of the US would not tolerate a military occupation of our country by a foreign country. Is it a surprise that people in other countries feel the same? Are Muslims really an enemy to be killed? Bring our troops home.

We need to be realistic. The “Arab Spring” is a creation of journalists, and has no reality. The populations of the Middle East countries are uneducated, unskilled, have no economic future other than one reliant entirely on petroleum extraction, and have no comprehension of any form of governance except despotism–either by “royal families” or dictators, or by miltant Islamists. They no doubt hate any invader, as anyone would, but when the 21st Century is over, they will be lucky if they have managed to arrive in the 19th Century; when the oil is less important, they will become utterly irrelevant. They are only beginning to comprehend that their precious “jihad” has resulted only in the massive derriere-kicking administered by US forces. We are there, and need to stay there–not to facilitate an “Arab Spring, which will gain us nothing–but to continue to demonstrate to them their puniness and the utter futility of trying to take us on with their pathetic terrorist “attacks”.

“They are only beginning to comprehend that their precious ‘jihad’ has resulted only in the massive derriere-kicking administered by US forces. We are there, and need to stay there–not to facilitate an “Arab Spring, which will gain us nothing–but to continue to demonstrate to them [Arabs] their puniness and the utter futility of trying to take us on with their pathetic terrorist ‘attacks’.”

This statement is from an ignorant and undiscerning warmonger.

Such statements encourage Arabs, who historically never had a quarrel with America, to lash out at America, if only to prove statements like this are false (as their countries are occupied or dominated by the U. S. military).

It puts in danger our troops (fathers, mothers, sons and daughters) and American civilians at home and overseas.

The arrogance implicit in such a statement encourages a ‘clash of civilizations’ that will never end.

“We are there, and need to stay there…to continue to demonstrate to them their puniness and the utter futility of trying to take us on with their pathetic terrorist “attacks”.”

When you say this to yourself aloud, doesn’t it sound pretty ridiculous? I can imagine it being followed by a big, deep cartoon-villain laugh. So our military men, women, and tax money are forced to go on 3, 4, 5 tours of duty…just so we can ‘demonstrate their puniness’? What grade are you in? if indeed they will become utterly irrelevant, that would seem to argue for less, not more intervention.